


How to Say I Love You with Socks

by expectingtofly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Castiel Loves Bees, Castiel and Dean Winchester Go Shopping, Castiel and Dean Winchester Have a Profound Bond, Castiel and Dean Winchester Need to Use Their Words, Castiel is a sockaholic, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Dean Winchester Deserves to be Happy, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Mutual Pining, socks are Dean's love language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:13:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26032456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/expectingtofly/pseuds/expectingtofly
Summary: When Castiel's grace is failing, he gets cold easily. So Dean buys him socks. Lots of socks.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 32
Kudos: 245





	How to Say I Love You with Socks

Another movie night in the Dean-Cave. Dean and Castiel took up their usual spaces on the couch, Dean on one end, Castiel on the other. Close, but not close enough. Dean didn’t know how to change that. He was just happy they were together and alive. Their lives had been chaos lately—rushing from hunt to hunt, Castiel running low on grace. This night was their first chance in weeks to take a breath.

Halfway through _The Untouchables_ , though, Dean realized Castiel didn't look quite so relaxed. He had pulled his knees up to his chest, his arms wrapped around his legs. 

“You alright, Cas?” he asked. 

Frowning, Castiel pulled his eyes from the TV. “It seems that since my grace is diminished, I can’t regulate my body temperature as well.” A shiver hitched his shoulders.

“You’re cold,” Dean realized. Grabbing a blanket, he slid closer to drape it over Castiel’s shoulders. “Here.”

Contentment spread across Castiel’s face as he wrapped the blanket tighter around himself. His shoulders relaxed and he smiled at Dean. “Thank you.” 

Dean realized his hand was still resting on Castiel’s back and he pulled it away. “Of course.” Tearing his eyes away from the sight Castiel made, cozy and warm, he retreated back to his side of the couch.

When the movie ended, Dean let the credits play, not wanting to hasten the inevitable moment when they both got up and went to their separate rooms. In the black screen he could see their reflections, two shapes on either side of the couch, wide distance between them. There was always so much space between them, but he was too hesitant to close it, afraid he'd cross a line, ruin a friendship, a happy night.

Sighing, he turned off the TV and the room went silent. They headed back to the hallway where the doors to their bedrooms stood.

“Goodnight,” Castiel said when they reached Dean’s door. He started to walk away, still holding the blanket around himself, and Dean realized Castiel's feet were bare. 

“Wait a moment,” he said. Going into his room, he rummaged through his dresser. “Take these,” he said, returning to where Castiel stood in the doorway and handing him a pair of his warmest socks, thick wool. “Put them on.”

Dutifully, Castiel did so. “They're very warm," he said with a happy sigh, looking down at his socked feet. 

“Keep them,” Dean said. They stood there for a moment longer in the doorway, until Dean stepped back. "Well, goodnight," he said, wishing he knew how to put into words what he really wanted to say.

“Goodnight."

Maybe it was Castiel's content sigh that Dean was thinking of when he was running errands the next day. Maybe he was thinking of the words he hadn't been able to say last night or any night. Maybe that’s why when he saw a pair of fuzzy socks, he decided to buy them. 

He felt sheepish putting the socks on the cashier conveyor belt. “They’re for my niece,” he lied when the cashier picked them up to scan them, feeling like he, a grown man, should have an appropriate excuse for buying yellow socks covered in tiny bees. The cashier only gave him a glance, seemingly not interested in the slightest.

He felt even more embarrassed when he found Castiel in the map room back at the bunker and gave him the socks. But Castiel's reaction was worth it.

“I love them,” Castiel breathed, taking them from Dean. Quickly, he pulled off Dean’s wool socks and pulled on the new ones. Dean had to smile at the way he wiggled his toes in the yellow socks and smiled up at him.

An urge filled him to bend down and press a kiss to Castiel’s lips, but instead he contented himself with patting Castiel on the shoulder. "You're welcome." 

There had always been something unspoken between him and Castiel. Something unbreakable tying them together over the years as they grew closer and grew apart, fought and found their way back to each other. Castiel had once called it their “profound bond," but Dean didn't know what that meant in practical terms. He had tried calling Castiel a friend, had tried calling him a brother. Neither of those words seemed enough. 

The next time Dean saw a pair of fuzzy socks, he bought them… and the time after that, and the time after that, and so on. He created a whole family of aunts and nieces and a mother and cousins with which to explain his purchases to cashiers. Castiel soon had a whole drawer designated for socks. Striped socks, polka dotted socks, fluffy socks, fuzzy socks, red socks, blue socks.

Buying them for Castiel seemed such a small gesture, but they always made Castiel smile. Maybe it wasn’t so small after all.

And maybe Castiel understood what Dean meant when he gave him a new pair of socks. Because one night when their movie ended and they made their way back to their rooms, Castiel paused in the hallway. “Can I… Can I sleep with you tonight?” 

Dean forgot how to speak for a moment, nodded quickly. “Yeah, of course,” he managed. 

They didn’t speak as they lay down and pulled up the covers. His heart pounding, Dean turned off the lamp on his nightstand and settled down. He could feel Castiel's arm against his, felt Castiel shiver. 

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“A little,” Castiel admitted and shifted, his socked foot brushing Dean’s foot, soft cotton.

After a moment’s hesitation, Dean wrapped his arm around him. “Better?” he asked.

“Yes,” Castiel said, sliding closer to Dean. “Much better.”

They began sleeping next to each other every night, moving closer and closer until they lay in each other’s arms. After years of yearning looks, they had progressed to something more tangible, though Dean didn’t know what to call this new development. He didn’t know what would happen if he tried to voice it, tried to give it a name. Castiel still shivered when he walked through the bunker. Dean bought him more socks. 

Socks made of wool and cotton, socks that shed, socks that soon became threadbare around the heel, socks stained with blood after hunts.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said after one such hunt where they discovered a vampire nest. He dropped his hand from where he’d held it over Dean’s arm. The gash from Dean’s elbow to wrist had stitched itself together slowly, the angry, red scar fading somewhat, though it still stung fiercely. “I wish I could do more.”

“You did more than enough,” Dean said, taking his hand as Castiel pulled him to his feet. His chest still felt tight, his hands shaky from the close call. Castiel had used his depleting grace to take down two vampires going after Sam, and Dean saw the exhaustion in his eyes, thought they must mirror his own.

Sam walked through the barn, counting how many vampires they had killed. “You guys good?” he called. When Dean nodded, he stepped outside the barn, out of view. Dean realized he was still holding Castiel's hand, slick with blood. 

“Are you sure you're alright?” he asked, looking back at Castiel. Castiel nodded and a smudge of blood on his chin drew Dean’s eyes. Hesitantly, Dean wiped at it with his thumb. Then he let his hand stay there, cupping Castiel’s face, his eyes trailing over the soft lines of Castiel’s mouth. 

“Dean,” Castiel said quietly, and Dean realized he was holding his breath. Before he could lose his courage, he leaned in and pressed his lips to Castiel's, a feather-light touch. The tightness in his chest unfurled when Castiel lifted a hand to his face and pressed their mouths closer together, soft but insistent.

“We should’ve done that years ago," Castiel whispered when slowly they broke apart and met each other's eyes.

Dean let out a shaky breath. "Yes, we should've."

Sam called for them to hurry up and, still breathless, Dean let go of Castiel's hand. Castiel looked down at his clothes, trench coat dirty and bloody. “These were new,” he complained, pulling up his pant leg to gesture to his socks—light blue dotted with stitched white clouds, now stained dark red.

Dean laughed, his head light. “I’ll buy you new ones.”

Socks Castiel wore on movie nights, socks Castiel tried to get Dean to wear, socks Castiel picked out, pointing to different ones in the store and Dean placing them in the cart. Holiday themed socks, movie themed socks, socks with tiny animals, socks with garish, gaudy colors that Dean pretended to hate. Castiel didn't shiver anymore. Dean kept buying him socks. 

“How much of our budget is going towards socks?” Sam asked them when they returned from the grocery store with yet another pair. (Had Dean realized before now that grocery stores sold socks? No, but it seemed he was now a magnet for them.)

“Credit card fraud, Sam,” Dean said, restocking the fridge. “It’s other people’s money.”

“And these are special,” Castiel said, sitting down at the kitchen table to pull them on. “They’re ‘spa socks infused with lotion.’” 

“Spa socks?” Sam asked, looking at Dean, not bothering to hide the smile on his face.

“Shut up,” Dean said. He was pretty sure Sam knew about him and Castiel—there was a particular look in his eyes when they came into the kitchen together in the mornings, when they left for long rides in Baby. He didn't mind that Sam knew, but he didn’t want to speak of it yet; this blossoming offshoot of the bond between him and Castiel still felt so new, so light. He was almost afraid it would collapse like a pyramid of cards if he spoke too loudly, tried to define it. He told himself he was just happy it existed.

Mismatched socks, blue and green stripes on Castiel’s left foot and corgis on his right, as he and Dean walked through a Walmart. Castiel refused to throw out any socks, even when he lost one to the dryer, or wherever socks disappeared to—hence the mismatched pairs. Or maybe he mismatched them on purpose; maybe he hadn’t figured out adult humans always match their socks. Either way, Dean never mentioned it because it was, he had to admit, a pretty adorable habit.

He was looking down the store aisles, trying to figure out where the toilet paper was, when Castiel said, “Wait, look!” and veered off to the left. 

“What?—oh.” Dean caught sight of the rack of socks Castiel was headed towards. “Cas, you have an obsession.” 

“That is completely your fault.” Castiel stopped in front of the rack and scanned the footwear. 

Dean was about to point out a pair— _actually, Cas might already own those,_ he thought—when Castiel inhaled sharply. “Look at these.” 

Dean turned to see what he was pointing at. Slippers. Large, plushy, yellow and black striped slippers with eyes and antennas to show that they were bees. Bee slippers. 

They were atrocious. 

Castiel reached out and squeezed one of the slippers in his hands. “There’s two pairs, we can match.”

The smile he turned on Dean was teasing, to show he wasn’t expecting Dean to say yes. Which was smart, because Dean was not going to say yes. 

But then Castiel added, “That is something couples do, isn’t it? Match with each other?” and Dean’s heart skipped a beat.

Castiel had called them a couple. Had spoken of _them_ , together. Dean hadn't realized how badly he'd wanted to hear them, their relationship, acknowledged. And suddenly, when spoken aloud, this blossoming thing, this growing relationship between them, didn't seem so tenuous, in danger of collapse. It felt weightier, like it was built to last.

Castiel dropped his hand from the slippers, and Dean knew a few years ago he would’ve told Castiel that only nauseatingly cute, annoying couples wore matching slippers. Now he knew what he really wanted to say, knew exactly what to call the bond between them.

He pulled the slippers off the rack. “Yes, they do,” he said. “When they’re in love and want everyone to know it.”

"In love," Castiel repeated, blue eyes searching Dean's.

Dean smiled. "Yes."

A tiny part of him wanted to curl up in embarrassment when they brought the slippers to check out, but a greater part of him prompted him, instead, to lace his fingers with Castiel’s and kiss him on the forehead. Castiel smiled up at him. The bee slippers eyed him from the plastic shopping bag. The cashier said, “That’ll be $21.39.”

And when Dean and Castiel padded into the kitchen the next morning in their matching, beady-eyed, lopsided antenna slippers, Dean didn’t even mind the stifled laughter they were met with from Sam. 

“You’re just jealous,” Dean said, threading his arm around Castiel’s waist and pulling him close. “They’re very comfortable.”

“And very warm,” Castiel added. He tapped his slippered foot against Dean’s, like the bees were kissing, and Sam pretended to gag. Smiling, Dean tapped Castiel's slipper back, then kissed him for real.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! this story was kinda similar to one I wrote a while ago ([Hope in the Form of One Small Bee](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24355900)) where Dean gifts Cas a lot of small things to show his love/make Cas smile. I didn't know that was a theme I was gonna return to, but I just think it's cute :)
> 
> I always appreciate comments if you feel so inclined :) and you can check out my tumblr [here](https://expectingtofly.tumblr.com/)!


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